Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Microsoft's Identity Chief: After Passport, Microsoft is rethinking identity | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com: "Using words like 'open' and 'standards,' [Kim] Cameron is not only leaning on insiders at Microsoft, all the way up to Bill Gates, to mend fences and adopt more of an open position; he's leaning on the industry for an identity breakthrough. Until it does, claims Cameron, technology will remain forever shackled from some of the most explosive growth that awaits it -- growth that he likens to a big bang.
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Cameron on the mistake Microsoft made: Passport began supporting unidirectional identifiers. Over time, it changed to omnidirectional because the Web sites wanted to be able to amalgamate digital dossiers in order to market to us better. Nobody thought very deeply about what these issues meant in terms of how people would react. The technology evolved, I think, in the wrong direction....We tried to do something that we thought was in the right direction but it wasn't well thought out... We need to rethink how you build this identity system in such a way that it behaves the way people expect it to behave."